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The author doesn't get what Bill Gates is saying. I doubt if Bill is naive enough not to understand what the model of measurement is important and never 100% o

by vph 14y ago

The author doesn't get what Bill Gates is saying. I doubt if Bill is naive enough not to understand what the model of measurement is important and never 100% objective. Bill is saying (1) teachers' performance needs to be measured; and (2) college ranking is based on a wrong criterion. And we must do something to fix this. Bill isn't saying he has the perfect model for measuring these two things. But he is right in saying both of these things. Teacher performance in K12 needs to be measured. It's hard, maybe expensive, and certainly subjective and biased in certain ways. But it needs to be measured. In college, teachers' performance is constantly measured. No professor will tell you that the student evaluation is a perfect indication of his/her ability to teach. But most professor would agree that such a thing is necessary.

wes-exp 14y ago
College professors tend to be recruited based on their ability to do research and get grants, so measuring them on teaching performance is non-threatening. However, the situation is different in K12. Bill Gates has been able to apply his measurement philosophy at Microsoft, and the results have been disastrous by most accounts. Here's a paper by an HR grad student slamming the practice: http://stevegall.wetpaint.com/page/Human+Resource+Management http://stevegall.wetpaint.com/page/Human+Resource+Management Money quote: "Stack ranking provides questionable value as to insight into an individual’s actual job performance. Its use highly politicizes an organization. The rank number is most often based on unsubstantiated subjective judgment by an evaluator who may feel pressured to respond according to a narrow set of guidelines." I love science. But measuring employee or teacher performance is not science. Managing an organization by pseudo-science should be called out for what it is: B.S.!
- vph 14y ago
  Teaching colleges of course take teaching seriously. Research universities place higher importance in research, but do take teaching also seriously simply because undergraduate tuition contributes to a big chunk of their revenue. >But measuring employee or teacher performance is not science. This assertion is baseless.
johnminter 14y ago
I certainly agree that learning - which I will define as the acquisition, mastery, and retention of prescribed skills - needs to be measured, modeled, and used to improve the performance and cost-effectiveness of the process. Learning is a complicated process governed by MANY factors beyond teacher performance. These would include the student's interest, aptitude, and maturity/self-control, the parents' interest and engagement, the administration's effectiveness at providing a safe environment conducive to learning. Clearly, these factors are interrelated. Any worthwhile study needs to collect sufficient data to reasonably represent these contributions to the outcome. Let me cite a concrete example: My wife is a teacher in a small private school who teaches chemistry, physics, calculus, and statistics to students in grades 10-12. Some of these are actually college level classes taught under the umbrella of a local community college, following their rubric. She spends many hours refining her classes and labs to make them more effective and engaging. As she looks at her grade distributions, they are ALWAYS bimodal. She can tell you by mid semester where most students will end up. Many will not do homework or study for tests. She will put notes on homework asking for students to see her about a problem and they will not follow up. She uses the school's academic warning system to notify parents, often with no response. Indeed, any parent can see any grade at any time by logging into the schools web site. The sad truth is many parents and students just don't give a rip. This is why many teachers roll their eyes when the "good idea fairy" suggests "let's do another study to evaluate teacher performance." It is high time we evaluate the performance of students, parents, teachers, and administrators in this process. I am tired of seeing educational expenditures go up and performance go down. We need to pay for performance at all levels.

by vph 14y ago

wes-exp 14y ago

College professors tend to be recruited based on their ability to do research and get grants, so measuring them on teaching performance is non-threatening. However, the situation is different in K12. Bill Gates has been able to apply his measurement philosophy at Microsoft, and the results have been disastrous by most accounts. Here's a paper by an HR grad student slamming the practice: http://stevegall.wetpaint.com/page/Human+Resource+Management http://stevegall.wetpaint.com/page/Human+Resource+Management Money quote: "Stack ranking provides questionable value as to insight into an individual’s actual job performance. Its use highly politicizes an organization. The rank number is most often based on unsubstantiated subjective judgment by an evaluator who may feel pressured to respond according to a narrow set of guidelines." I love science. But measuring employee or teacher performance is not science. Managing an organization by pseudo-science should be called out for what it is: B.S.!

vph 14y ago
Teaching colleges of course take teaching seriously. Research universities place higher importance in research, but do take teaching also seriously simply because undergraduate tuition contributes to a big chunk of their revenue. >But measuring employee or teacher performance is not science. This assertion is baseless.

johnminter 14y ago

I certainly agree that learning - which I will define as the acquisition, mastery, and retention of prescribed skills - needs to be measured, modeled, and used to improve the performance and cost-effectiveness of the process. Learning is a complicated process governed by MANY factors beyond teacher performance. These would include the student's interest, aptitude, and maturity/self-control, the parents' interest and engagement, the administration's effectiveness at providing a safe environment conducive to learning. Clearly, these factors are interrelated. Any worthwhile study needs to collect sufficient data to reasonably represent these contributions to the outcome. Let me cite a concrete example: My wife is a teacher in a small private school who teaches chemistry, physics, calculus, and statistics to students in grades 10-12. Some of these are actually college level classes taught under the umbrella of a local community college, following their rubric. She spends many hours refining her classes and labs to make them more effective and engaging. As she looks at her grade distributions, they are ALWAYS bimodal. She can tell you by mid semester where most students will end up. Many will not do homework or study for tests. She will put notes on homework asking for students to see her about a problem and they will not follow up. She uses the school's academic warning system to notify parents, often with no response. Indeed, any parent can see any grade at any time by logging into the schools web site. The sad truth is many parents and students just don't give a rip. This is why many teachers roll their eyes when the "good idea fairy" suggests "let's do another study to evaluate teacher performance." It is high time we evaluate the performance of students, parents, teachers, and administrators in this process. I am tired of seeing educational expenditures go up and performance go down. We need to pay for performance at all levels.